First, a reading. From the Book of Things People Actually Said:

"Nobody predicted it because nobody thought you'd be lame enough to do the same costume again."

I love that quote. Proves a number of things simultaneously, doesn't it?

Honestly. They all say it was so predictable, but only one person had the stones to actually cough out the words "Jack Sparrow." I don't know, he's got a beard, it's my favourite movie, it all seemed pretty bloody obvious to me!

Now, if there's something more entertaining than going to work all piratey, I don't want to know about it. As befits my job description, here are some Lessons Learned:

1. Costume is one thing; character is something else.

Some poor sod actually made the mistake of wearing a lower-rent Jack Sparrow costume to one of the training sessions today. I came stumbling into room to co-judge their costume contest, and he said "I've got the costume... but I can't do that." At which point I told him there was something familiar about the cut of his jib, threatened to run him through with my sword, and then pranced out of the room like the strutting peacock I am.

2. They never expect partner play.

A guy came up to me on the RT this morning thinking himself quite clever, and said "Scrub the decks, mate!" to which I very replied (very loudly) "YOU SCRUB THE DECKS, I'M THE BLOODY CAPTAIN!" Startled the poor bastard all the way back to Scarborough Town Centre with that. I was channelling all day, to all comers; my favourite improvised line was "It's beautiful. Like a sunrise, or watching a kitten fuck another kitten."

3. Long hair sucks.

I don't know how you ladies stand this shit.

4. Best costume evah!

But let's talk wig! Nay, let's talk art, because that's what this thing is. The wig is the item I referred to last week as having not arrived yet. It is a custom jobbie from the United States. It is two layers, one of dreadlocks, and one of straight hair. It has all the appropriate bangles, jangles, braids, and pony tails. It is "movie accurate." Oh, it is a glorious, beautiful thing.

Other ways this costume beats the old costume:

• Vest and breaches from China, aged in my garden
• Tea-aged the pirate shirt and the waist sash; they both look pretty startlingly weathered and I'm thinking of doing this to all my clothes
• Jewellery includes Jack's emerald ring and a replica of the key to the Dead Man's chest around my neck
• Henna Sparrow tattoo on my inner right arm
• Boots from Singapore
• Jack Sparrow replica sword (not the expensive one, unfortunately, but otherwise awesome) with a holster I jerry-rigged out of a couple of dollar-store belts
• Stitching glove on the right hand; bandage to cover Davy Jones' mark on the left hand
• Same women's belt I've worn with every variation of the costume, and have been wearing since my Episode I costume in 1999
• I grew the beard for 8 weeks and then cut it down like I was shaving on the pitching deck of a galleon at sea while under the influence of rum. It looks awful and I think I'll keep it like this.
• I have really improved at applying eye liner.
• Underwear is for pansies.

Anyways that was the first part of my day. On to the second - back later with more! Ohhhhh it's gonna be a long night.

Posted by tederick at 5:20 PM in j-o-b & pirates
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Posted by tederick at 9:00 AM in extreme steve
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Sadly, the long-promised Tederikipedia project is stillborn. As much as it was truly hilarious to contemplate the site having its own wikipedia, from a management perspective, it was just turning into such a pain in the ass. I'm sure a few years down the line they'll have improved the tool to the point where yobs like me will be able to use it productively, but that time ain't now.

Sigh. This means I have to keep updating Jasper Online manually.

Things have been going pretty well lately, Internet. For one thing, I really feel like I'm "getting it done" at work nowadays; my recent switch in focus to instructional design has really reenergized my daily grind. O'course, this could just be honeymoonin', but we'll see. It feels right. (Or, as I was about to put, righter.) And my off-hours plate is full-ish, but not overwhelmingly so, and there are some new and interesting after-hours stuff getting started that I'm sure I'll be blogging about plenty in the coming months. On the whole (though this is premature) I would say that 2007 has been a pretty important year for me, personally.

Actually, why is it premature? If Hallowe'en is my "most wonderful time of the year" a la Christmas, then maybe I should start tallying my years as Nov 1 - Oct 31.

Nah, fuck it, that's George Bush thinkin'.

But in the meantime, and now that the cat is largely out of the bag, here is the updated list of everything I've ever been for Hallowe'en:

• A filthy little Arab (yeah: I grew up in those 1980s)
• Indiana Jones
• A wizard (my wand kicked ass. It was a clear tube of plastic that had green liquid and sparklies in it, which was the absolute height of cool when I was a kid.)
• Vincent from Beauty and the Beast
• Storm Shadow (I even did the red arm tattoo, which I was pretty damn proud of at the time)
• Batman (movie version, with black leather cowl... aw yeah)
• The Phantom of the Opera (the year where parents on the street started refusing me candy. It broke my 13-year-old heart.)
• The Grim Reaper
• Romeo (call me a cheeseball freak, but that could actually be my favourite picture ever taken of me with a girl... but then there's always:)
• Spike (which was... I mean, come on)
• Harry Potter
• Captain Jack Sparrow (which, no matter what anyone tells you over the course of the next three days, I have only been for Hallowe'en once)
• River (damn, that was an ugly idea)
• Clark Kent

What have we learned? Well, for one thing, partner yoga is the best yoga. Second: the ones who don't get it, ain't gonna. And third: I love Hallowe'en so much it makes my head spin. I've got next year's costume picked out already, and let me tell you, I'm a man of my word.

My wig finally arrived yesterday so I'm going to make such a delightful ass of myself at work tomorrow... work, Starbucks, the Snail, Burrito Boyz, and every other place I visit over the course of the day.

Posted by tederick at 6:03 PM in j-o-b & miscellaneous crap & tederickdotcomdotcom
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Now, it seems to me that the biggest problem with watching and enjoying Pushing Daisies - which, in spite of my sworn vow to not pick up any new television series this year, I do - is that there aren't actually any places in the world like the Pie Hole. I mean, I could seriously do with some gourmet, order-in pie right now. With cheese (and anti-depressants) baked into the crust. That would do me just fine. This craving hits me at about the twenty minute mark of every episode. Actually, taken from the other end, it's probably good that there are no Pie Holes in Toronto, because if there were, I would be fat. Very, very fat.

This series fascinates me. In four episodes they've already gone to what I would, upon initial viewing, have considered the first two years' worth of plots. Common Sense (as interpreted by the modern television industry) dictates that the "will they or won't they" game be played out for at least that long... instead, Chuck and Pie Man are smooching it up oldschool every time they can find a suitable prophylactic. (This show is, bar none, the best American television series ever made on the subject of safe sex.) Now they've added the crazy aunts beginning to be aware of Chuck's back-to-life, and annoying-as-fuck Olive starting to see the multiple perspectives laid into her Quixotic (and irritating) quest to win the Piemaker's heart. Which all begs the question:

Where in the hell is this show going?!

I mean, if this is how far into the obvious "mythology" they've come at this point in the narrative, one imagines there either has to be a hell of a lot coming that I haven't anticipated - like, Chuck dies, and the second season takes place in the afterlife - or, unfortunately, that they've already shot the wad, and the show is simply as you see it: episodic whodunits played in a whimsical frame. Which oughta get old in about two and a half weeks.

In the meantime, simple pleasures abound: just try tracking all of the height cheats in the show (Kristen Chenoweth is 4'11"; Anna Friel is 5'2"; Lee Pace is 6'3"; and Chi Damn McBride is a whopping 6'4"½; they very rarely appear onscreen simultaneously but the effect after so much height adjustment in the coverage is nothing short of stunning). Or bliss out to mellifluous tones of Jim Dale's edge-of-smarmy narration. Or look for the bluescreen halos, or the even more impressive lack of bluescreen halos. It's a pretty goddamn unique piece of television, I'll give it that. And if I'm not quite all the way to "loving it" yet, I am solidly on top of "looking forward to it each week." I can almost taste the pie.

Posted by tederick at 5:42 PM in foodin' & tv
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THIS! IS! THE! BEST! NEWS! EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Thank you, writer's strike, thank you so much!!!

Posted by tederick at 12:54 PM in movies & tv
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I only drank about half a bottle of rum last night, which I guess explains why I'm not hung over; I'm also starting to believe in the preventative powers of a 3 a.m. peanut butter sandwich. Though I don't really understand why. Chemistry? Mebbe.

Anyways the party was a bit of a bust; many folk I truly do enjoy spending time with came by - Bex came as a cloud with TJ as rain, Candace came as the Bride (complete with head-to-toe yellow spandex jumpsuit), and Mark came as that which scares him the most (commitment). So I guess I had a good time, but overall the night was under-attended and never quite hit that critical number of people in the room to really break through. It's funny. Last year you couldn't find a single interesting thing to do on Hallowe'en for love or money and we all pretty much ended up doing nothing; this year there was so much going on that I had three other events that I would genuinely have enjoyed attending, had I not been throwing my own thing that nobody came to. It's all too much work just to end up standing around wondering why you're not having more fun on your supposed favourite night of the year. From now on, I'm a professional Hallowe'en party attender, not thrower.

Good news is, my partially-destroyed beard looks very interesting. I think I shall keep it like this.

Posted by tederick at 10:55 AM in 3QF & the rum diaries
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Sooooooooooooooooo. [ Exclamation point! ]

It is approximatly as twelve forty six in the morning. My name is JACK! [ exclamation point ]

and I am here with Rebeccva Wood. No reference here, sir.None. SUCK IT
nuns can also suck it

Soooooooooooooooooooooooo. In thge distant future, humans will actually attend 31F parties. Damn that says three one eff! WTF. Well anyway you get the point FUCK ALL Y'ALL. yeah

this is so defenestrated! woooo

p.s. Rebecca co-wrote the motherfucker! All right

Posted by tederick at 12:45 AM in the rum diaries
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Me and the Cannonball have a plan, and that plan is: survive the apocalypse. Further to this, there are some things we figure we need to train ourselves up on in the years leading up to the collapse of human civilization:

• How to skin an elk
• Archery
• Killing a man in a fair fight
• Marriage brokering
• Defending a small encampment in the wilderness against the vastly superior numbers of the plague-ravaged American zombie hoarde.

Further to that end, yet in fact entirely unrelated, I have finally cottoned to the fact that everybody - everybody - calls me Matt Brown. Not Matt, not Matthew, not His Excellency, but Matt Brown. As such I am thinking of changing my professional name to reflect this. After all, when legend becomes fact, pring the legend. It's too late to change the credits on The Secret of String (too late by way of "I'm too fucking lazy"), but it's an idea for going forward.

I see death in Jin's future. Grim, salty death.

I've just come back from a rather large Chinese dinner in celebration of Felix's birthday, which was quite an excellent thing to do, actually. Before I left, I read this, and on the way downtown, I was thinking about how much I hate Bill Donahue. I don't think there's a word in my language derogatory enough for Bill Donahue, so I decided to make one up. The first one that came into my head was unart, pronounced "oo-NART." I thought that sounded pretty good and then I wrote it down and realized that its subconscious origins might be a tad on the obvious side, but I'm keeping it. An unart (noun) is a person so vile and despicable that they are, on any objective moral scale, unworthy of the right to call themselves a member of our species.

Look: it's Wonder Woman!

I am wearing a hat.

Posted by tederick at 10:41 PM in 4-8-15-16-23-42 & movies & tederick films & the apocalypse
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Sorry to darken the last moments of your Friday after what has been a dark enough week, but here's an upsetting news bit out of Florida: a woman pierces her 13-year-old daughter's vulva to make it painful for the kid to have sex... and doesn't go to jail for child abuse.

The jury felt "the mother's actions didn't involve punishment or malicious intent."

That about does it for me. I'll be back soon with happier tidings, I promise.

Posted by tederick at 5:45 PM in vagina fridays
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Well, it's the next-to-last mail day before the party, and the crowning element of my Hallowe'en costume has yet to arrive. Which is pretty disappointing. But of all the elements of this thing to have to improvise, this is the one I've got covered off regardless, so I guess there are worse things. Still - !! You would not believe how cool this one particular thing was going to be. (I will show you next week, whether it arrives or not.) Oh well. I guess it could still arrive tomorrow.

Otherwise, I bench-tested the rest of the motherfucker just now, and god damn. As I think I've said before, there is absolutely no one who is going to be impressed by what I've done here, other than me. But I am so fucking proud of this deal. And I've got the strut down cold.

What else happened today? Well, we shot Daniel's second and last segment of VCR: The Ninth Gate for one thing, and Daniel taught me a new word: defenestration. Oh, I love it. I think it is one of the loveliest words I have ever heard. I wish I had known of this word from the moment we first conceived of this VCR decalogue; it might have been the title for the whole deal. At the very least, I'm going to have to slip it into the credits for VCR10y. And possibly every other thing I ever write for the rest of ever.

After giving it some more thought, I realized vis a vis the Dumbledore situation that I agree with this guy, at least on the macro scale: there is something morally cowardly about what went on here, and not just the after-the-last-minute outing. But after even more thought on the subject, I also realized that for all my desire to have Dumbledore be the perfect queer icon that the fantasy universe deserves to have, the pieces don't really fit. I didn't give one passing thought to Dumbledore's entire lack of a sexual or romantic life when he was (de facto) heterosexual; I don't see why the sex life of a 115-year-old man should suddenly need to be foregrounded when that sex life involves other men instead of women. This is all part of a very complicated idea, but at least part of this idea bears the veneer of reverse homophobia. So I think a) we had better leave this alone now, and b) Rowling shouldn't have bothered in the first place. Putting this on the table just showed how desperate the table is. It would be nice if any one thing could ever just mean one thing, but that'll never happen. Forcing mandates upon icons just makes them fall down. And good lord, Michael Gambon must be getting weary of his picture being the very meaning of "THIS MAN IS GAY!" this week.

Moving over to the next franchise, I read the end of The Golden Compass today and am now into The Subtle Knife; whoever hypno-whammied Phillip Pullman into supporting the excision of the last three chapters of Compass from the film that shall shortly bear its name should be cast off the highest cliff on all of Svalbard. The bear fight is not the climax of Lyra's arc in the first book. Good fucking lord. Basic screenwriting, people.

Anyways, based on how much finishing Compass got to me today, I am going to be a snivelly, weepy mess when Spyglass dwindles down, a few hundred pages from here. Doing this in the fall might have been a grand, beautiful mistake.

Posted by tederick at 10:36 PM in books & h-pot & movies & pirates & sex (theoretical) & tederick films
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Posted by tederick at 5:05 PM in extreme steve
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Well this just bakes my noodle.

Some guy did that. Neither Jason, nor I, but some guy. A guy who probably has no idea that there are two Torontonians who have spent a significant portion of their adult lives as either founders or foundres emeritus of Bearshark.

I gotta say, if I had twigged to the possibility of cyber-bearsharks out there, I would never have left the company. This also raises the possibility of panserbjørnsharks, which is in fact even better.

Posted by tederick at 11:28 AM in miscellaneous crap
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Well, I guess my cold is getting better but the all-day headache that was brought on by the weather makes it sort of hard to say. Everything's kinda "shimmery" right now. Plus column: my back's way better. But I really feel like my head is about to come shooting off on a streamer of light.

Jim Broadbent! What is that guy's deal. He is in all the fantasy franchises. He's in Narnia, he's about to be in Harry Potter, he's in His Dark Materials and Indiana Jones, and he's the guy standing on Denethor's immediate left when old Denny jumps off the prow of Minas Tirith. True story. And he was Gamorrean guard #3 in Return of the Jedi and Moses Friend #1 in The Ten Commandments and also one time, he played Buddha. Who is his agent? I would like to meet such an agent, who seemingly does the impossible.

I haven't played the Wii in a really long time. I like to limit my Wii usage to really sporadic, but really intense sorties. Like a few weeks ago, I played for about 48 hours straight. Many shuvs and zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you. And maybe it's the October weather - which is just lovely, isn't it? I must be the only human alive who likes this sort of endless melancholic drizzle - but I am really in the mood for some zombie wastage. It's probably best I didn't attend the zombie walk on the weekend; there's no telling what I woulda done.

The problem is that usually when I want to go to something that involves getting dressed up in costume, dousing oneself with blood and/or rum, and acting outrageously, most of my friends go "sigh" not "yay." So I skipped the zombie walk. I'm really only disappointed with myself.

Man. This headache ain't gettin' better from sitting here writing about it. I need a shower and a cold dark room.

Posted by tederick at 5:13 PM in miscellaneous crap & movies & wii & zombies
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Megatron destroyed Sao Feng, internet. I think as humans we tend to forget the sheer destructive power that robot kicks will do to a person's jaw. Yeah Sao Feng ain't getting up any time soon. I made hilarious videotape of the whole thing! Maybe if I'm feeling particularly 2.0 later I'll put it up on the Toub.

As we were at the Starbucks until closing last night recording the Mamo, and I'm at the Starbucks just after opening working on the Snapdragon, I can verify for my readers that goblin hoedowns do not take place at Starbuckses after hours. Or if they do, the goblins are unusually good at clearing away the evidence. Because this place looks exactly the same.

I added a fifth issue to Snapdragon; the plot is concluded at the end of issue 4 but the primary characters get sort of underserved by that issue so I wanted to tack one more on. The problem with 5 is, no plot at all. Soooooooo.... that's challenging. It's all just warm-up for the next thing anyway, which will be comprised of one part writing a new feature, and two parts shooting a new short. I am heartened by the degree that Diablo Cody is all over the movie news lately, hustlin' and flowin' with new movies and new TV shows for Steven Spielberg. Former stripper can dealmake! Good for her. Of course, if my name was Diablo, I wouldn't face the career challenges I currently face. But I'm not as burned up about that as I usedtacould.

It's pouring. I'm sailing on a new open Wi-Fi port because all of the old ones surrounding this Starbucks got unceremoniously shut down a couple of weeks ago. WERE GOBLINS INVOLVED? Time will tell.

Posted by tederick at 7:15 AM in movies & podcastery & the process & toys!
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12" Sao Feng: worth every bloody penny. (And the penny count? Not small.) This falls in line with my new goal of buying less crap but buying way better crap. This is tip top crap. And I got him delivered to work, Brainwave of the Year. No back-and-forth with FedEx for their refusal to leave it on my porch. No sir. Two words: receiving department. Can't believe I didn't twig to this before. I'm going to take him home and have him fight Megatron. Why? Because one of the things I realized last week at Tony Robbins was that in spite of the fact that I own all these toys, I like never play with them! That's changing starting right now. And it's all about cross-franchise throwdowns this week.

Speaking of cross-franchise throwdowns, today in "hilarious things to link to," Lance Henriksen playing guns with Ewen Bremner. You know, there are days when I really don't want to know what it's like at Lance Henriksen's house. Is it really fun? Really scary? Sort of boring? I'm sure there's an answer, and I don't want it. I just want to ruminate.

When I was a kid we had this crazy dealie you plugged in to the ass of a Nintendo video game and then when you plugged the whole thing into the Nintendo, it did crazy shit like give you a billion bonus lives or make Super Raccoon Mario into a kind of living god. My question is: is there a Game Genie for the Wii? Cuz if so I gotta get that thing happening. Imagine what I could do to those motherfucking zombies if I was a Super Raccoon Mario.

I am feeling much better, thank you Internet for asking and for all your well wishes. Even the ones that were not technically English. Now I'm off to find a brownie and some ice cream.

Posted by tederick at 3:54 PM in toys! & wii & zombies
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"Do you throw the testicles at the poor, or do you sell them to the Greeks?" - Beat Kids

Oh, sick. Sick sick sick. Stupid cold: I blame Rachel. Although it's not entirely Rachel's fault because my back, which has been giving me trouble since Nuit Blanche, is also all fucked up. So basically I am doing nothing with myself besides sitting on the couch and watching Lord of the Rings special features. Thank goodness I don't have goals.

One thing I did manage to do that was fun, though, was start aging my costume. I went at it with steel wool and sandpaper and scrubbed it in cat litter. And then I buried it. I fucking buried it! How cool is that. It's out in the garden right now. I'll dig it up on Thursday. And then drag it behind my bike.

Last night, unable to do anything else, I watched the entire second season of Wonder Showzen. C'est magnifique, ca. It's really too bad they don't make that show any more because it's the closest the MTV empire ever got to creating legitimate art.

Waaaaaahhhhhh. I hate feeling like this. Gonna go make tea and have peanut butter.

Posted by tederick at 9:28 AM in miscellaneous crap & tv
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Hey, Dumbledore's gay! Really don't know what to make of that one. I guess it's all right. When a character is so utterly sexless as Dumbledore is, I suppose it's reasonably easy to make him gay... especially months after the fact, huh? Boy, the slash community is going to go fucking crazy on this one. Might as well reveal that Snape is actually a woman named Sheila while we're at it.

Much easier to enjoy on the newsfront is the revelation that Criterion will finally be dipping into the Kurosawa canon with their Eclipse series... series 7, to be exact, which will be called "Postwar Kurosawa." Interestingly they're actually calling Record of a Living Being by its original title, I Live In Fear - which is only interesting because they didn't bother to do it for High and Low or Throne of Blood.

I expect there still has to be an "Early Kurosawa" box out there to be made, containing Sanshiro Sugata 1 & 2, along with They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail. Drunken Angel is getting a spec ed release in November. But we're entering the unfortunate realm of film scholarship where, quite literally, there might be no standing prints of the early works to make DVDs out of. And we're talking about artwork of less than 65 years of age. How does anything survive anything?? We're such brutes.

I had a bunch of stuff I was looking forward to doing today. But I'm coming down with a cold and my energy level has completely vanished on me. So instead I'm attacking people on Facebook and trying to figure out if it's worth slogging to the IGA to get Kraft Dinner.

Posted by tederick at 3:42 PM in h-pot & shinydisks
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"...as plate after plate of fluffy poached eggs, cartilaginous peameal, and lakes of sunshiney goo continued to pile up over time, I realized that if I don't start catalogueing these excursions in some formal manner, a great field of human knowledge would be lost. Hence, the Benedict Chronicles..."

Last weekend when I was in the Goo, Bex grabbed me by the collar and took me to Eggcetera, the Goo's local egg haven. Rightly fucking so. This meal was tip top. It was a bit like the benny they serve at The Tulip, but even better.

So anyways, me an' Home Fries hit the Egg Cetera with TJ and made with the benny. It was hard to choose because they had like fifteen fucking bennies on this menu, meaning that if I go to Egg Cetera every time I go to the Goo for the rest of my life, I'll still probably not get to the bottom of the list. Why, oh why, did we only start going to this place when my friends were about to graduate? It is our tragedies that define us.

The benny itself is freaking solid, but what really sells this meal is the home fries - that weird deal where they apparently just chop potatoes into a bunch of random shapes, shove 'em in the deep fryer, and then pull them out and season them. It works every time. If there was one downside to this meal it was that the peameal was enormous and the eggs and hollandaise were struggling to keep up, but this didn't seem to affect the flavour at all, so I en't complaining. Yeah I'd call this one of the best ones I've had so far doing this BenChro dealie. I'll definitely be going back.

Egg Cetera is located at 200 Victoria Road South in Guelph, Ontario. The Benedict Chronicles is an ongoing, non-regular series.

Posted by tederick at 1:47 PM in the benedict chroncicles
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I think if you play this preview clip fast enough, the flickering back and forth between 14-year-old and present-day Claire Danes could probably give you a seizure.

The real dealkiller for me on the new My So-Called Life DVDs is whether or not they did a fresh transfer. The transfers on the original sets weren't great, but then, neither were the master copies. New special features (and Joss Whedon optional extras!) are tantalizing and all, but I already climbed and died on this hill in 2002. Where's my parade, Shout Factory???

Oh who am I kidding, I've already pre-ordered the bloody thing...

Posted by tederick at 5:53 PM in shinydisks & tv
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I AM EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH, INTERNET!!! Wowsers. Only took two damn years but man that's satisfying. I used my corporate points to buy a 3-man tent. I was going to go with a gardening tool set that comes in an attaché case, because I figured it would be like I would be the gardener equivalent of a contract killer: I'd show up in your back yard and be like, "We are doing some fucking gardening, bitch" and then whip out my annodized grass shears. But no, I went for the tent instead because now when the apocalypse comes I can just lit out for the hills with my tent on my back. Aragorn-style. It pays to be forward-thinking on matters of the apocalypse; the post-apocalypstic wastes will offer little opportunity for gardening (due to soil atrophy).

I haven't even bought the Blu-Ray player and it's already giving me trouble by way of the format war. Two titles are out of my reach: the forthcoming Zodiac special edition, which is a Paramount title and therefore format-specific; and Transformers, which is a godawful movie but man fucking sweet pants do I want to own that on Blu-Ray. In fact, it was the flick that kicked off the entire Blu-Ray decision in the first place because who doesn't want ultra high definition splendourific awesomeness of Megatron trying to crush Shia LaBeouf like a bug? Stupid DVD companies and your wars! Don't you see it's your war, but our world??? Shame.

My new hoodie has thumb holes. Oh, I love it. But remember: you can't marry a hoodie. A hoodie cannot love you back, even with thumb holes. It can only keep you warm and make you feel awesome.

Iorek and Lyra are on the wall of the Scarborough Town Centre across the street, sixty feet tall. It's going to be a glorious winter.

Posted by tederick at 1:36 PM in hoodies & j-o-b & shinydisks & the apocalypse
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And now I have a pirate satchel. Yarrrrrrrrr.

Actually in many ways, Hallowe'en is pirate paradise. That is why it's the Most Wonderful Time (Of The Year). I defy you to walk into a drug store right now and not come out with five pirate-related objects. Ditto toy stores, ditto comic book stores, ditto (obviously) actual costume shops. I spent a fucking mint at Malabar's the other day. And among the mint was my satchel.

I WENT TO SEE TONY ROBBINS TODAY!! You can only express stuff like that in capital letters. (My blogTO write-up of the event is here.) The man has huge, huge hands. The warm-up acts were generally lame but Tony, man, that guy is the real deal. I think that was the major draw for me. Way the hell back in the day, I used Personal Power to dig out of some rather nasty business; today, I just wanted to see if the guy actually delivered the goods or if it was all just finely-honed salesmanship. Well yeah: I'd say he genuinely does deliver what he commits. I was pretty impressed. Learned some shit, had some laughs. My dad took me to the show, and after, I took him to Burrito Boyz, and we talked about raising our standards.

Now, regarding Umbrella Academy: how did Daniel Cockburn write a comic book without actually writing it? Because this is so clearly a D-Coc property, and I'm foxed as to how he did it. Still it's fairly impressive work, made all the more so by the fact that as far as I'm aware, D-Coc doesn't even know what a comic book is. (And also: I don't think he liked Batman Begins. So he's a heathen.) I've got a few more pages in issue 4 of Snapdragon to finish in the morning, and after that we'll have to see if it's as Matt Brown an artwork as Umbrella Academy is a D-Coc.

Always remember, your focus determines your reality. That's a Qui-Gonism, but it applies.

Posted by tederick at 10:52 PM in blogTO & comix & jedi antics & pirates
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Posted by tederick at 10:15 PM in galaxy far
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"...as plate after plate of fluffy poached eggs, cartilaginous peameal, and lakes of sunshiney goo continued to pile up over time, I realized that if I don't start catalogueing these excursions in some formal manner, a great field of human knowledge would be lost. Hence, the Benedict Chronicles..."

I went and had this benny with Matthew and Leah a couple of days before the film festival started. Why did I wait seven weeks to review it? Because it was fucking awful. I mean Jesus, even thinking about it right now I'm getting nauseous. Fuck Eggs Princess, Internet, fuck it (her?) hard. God Jesus fuck fuck, I don't even want to be doing this. Let's get through it fast.

NEVER GET ANYTHING AT A DINER THAT CLAIMS TO HAVE FILET MIGNON ON IT. I guess that's the "key learning" here, as we'd say at the office. You know what filet mignon is? Delicate, that's what. You can't keep it in a Fran's freezer for a month and then sling it on a benny in place of the peameal and expect the motherfucker to taste good. It does not. How could it? Christ's bandages I don't know what I was thinking ordering this thing.

Eggs Princess gets rid of the peameal for filet, and throws a few wilted pieces of asparagus on top, and costs a goddamned insane fifteen dollars for its awfulness. Stay away. Do whatever you have to do to never, ever consume this meal. I can't give negative eggs to convey my displeasure, so instead I'm giving this thing four splatters of virgin's blood out of four, i.e. it is the worst fucking meal I have ever had, ever. FUCK.

My perennial Fran's is located at College and Yonge in Toronto. The Benedict Chronicles is an ongoing, non-regular series.

Posted by tederick at 8:44 PM in blood & the benedict chroncicles
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That's the only possible explanation for that noise.

I will start writing momentarily - don't rush me! I am picking my way through issue 4 of Snapdragon - turns out, not having a plan occasionally sucks. I'm getting there, but slowly.

I'd like to take this opportunity to stress the importance of diet and exercise. I rode my bike down to the blogTO meeting last night and yeah, it was hard and cold and my muscles are already turning into old leather, but I felt about 110% better after I was done. Winter is scary to me. Don't want another one like last time, want to keep the activity level up, and am fundamentally unwilling to join a gym. It's poxy, and I don't like it. Already I'm pissed at about six people who don't deserve it (including one who really, really doesn't deserve it), and I storm around from place to place like I'm going to burst in with a rapier and go to town on the joint. Clearly something vexes me.

(There, I used poxy and vex in the same paragraph. I am clearly awesome.)

Here, this will amuse you:

It's impossible not to feel a little better after a spate of Vadermonica.

Posted by tederick at 7:14 AM in 3QF & galaxy far & the process & youtubery
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I'm feeling that. It's all stirred up thick and muckity and I'm just a kid! I don't know from corporate negotiations, bedside text messages, midnight parking arrangements or unlooked-for power brokerages of the personal or the arcane. And I certainly don't understand love. I know from action figures and THAT'S IT. I'm just keeping to myself and being watchful; it's enough. But these times, man. These times.

I'm tending to my garments in the meantime. I'm pleased to say that this winter will not be the last season on earth for my beloved Raiders jacket; the good folk at Wested are going to be re-lining and refurbishing the ratty old thing for an astonishingly small figure of money. At the same time, I'm looking for more hoods; I think I even want a hooded jacket. I came across no less than three hooded items over the weekend and will probably end up buying at least two. Hoods are integral to success.

This Thing Is Bigger Than The Both Of Us: The Secret of String, the longest title I have ever had for anything, will be screening at this year's One Minute Film & Video Festival. It's on November 22nd at the Bloor Cinema. I look to be in Vancouver right up till the morning of the show, but I'll redeye it back if I have to. Attend, won't you?

His Dark Materials is throwing me into near-paroxysms of joy this time through. I haven't read it in - what? - two years? Yeah I might become like Christopher Lee for Rings and just read this annually; I am just so freaking happy as I turn every single page. And making connections and asking questions and writing things down. I love this part of the story, where all the random characters just sort of ball up together, totally unaware that about seven hundred pages from now they're all going to save the world. Just think, the people currently collecting around you like lint might be your Scooby gang for the next apocalypse. Wild, huh? Except no one ever knows it at the time. Nobody ever says "the eight or nine of us right here, who didn't know each other from nobody ten minutes ago, we're gong to save the world." Well, since the only downside is that I might be wrong, I'm putting it out there: me and mine? We're going to save the world. Why not?

Posted by tederick at 4:36 PM in 1MFVF & books & hoodies & poetical & tederick films
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Partially motivated by the recent FeSI launch, Bex and I finally recorded our very first Suck It. A WHOLE NEW PODCAST!! This is the podcast we've been meaning to do for about two years; it's sort of our equivalent of SModcast, in that we mostly just ramble about whatever the hell is on our mind. In this case we did it over beer and Indian food - we may do so exclusively from now on. Here's the show.

I'm impressed with how much podcasting infrastructure has crept up since we started Mamo a hundred shows ago - Bex just went ahead and set up this hosting site in, like, twenty minutes or something. I don't understand the leaf motif but otherwise I'm satisfied.

The next one should be along in, oh, two or three years.

Posted by tederick at 9:45 AM in podcastery
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I was in the Goo for a 24-hour layover this weekend; I should have stayed longer. I needed a bit more Goo October, a bit more downtown, although I also really needed an afternoon watching Buffy with the Box Girls - more than I would have imagined, actually - and I got that, so no complaints. I agree with TJ in that generally, I think things should be easier; but I am also aware that in the short term they probably won't be, and the long term is anyone's guess. I realized the other day that the real trick in all this is simply figuring out which character you are in the story, and I've had some recent and useful clues.

I spent a good portion of yesterday morning torturing myself about Blade Runner: The Final Cut, which is in theatres in New York and Los (San?) Angeles, but not in Toronto. I'd be fine with it if the entire internet wasn't talking about the fucking thing. (This Wired interview with Ridley is particularly good.) Reading review after review after review (after review) of the thing is like going to the girl I have a crush on's Facebook page and looking at pictures of her for hours. Stupid Blade Runner stupid Final Cut stupid San Angeles! Still, it's a good reason to get a better TV before Christmas. With my credit card currently at a zero balance I'm feeling loud and bloodthirsty in my spending.

Complete Return of the King track listing: here. Some interesting stuff on there, including some stuff I didn't expect. I am quite looking forward to this, not just for completeness' sake but because it's such a substantial thing. Fits the changing of the seasons.

Anyways. As we are coming to the close of the project that has dominated my time for the last six months, I am constrained to work today, much is the pity. I'd rather find a nook somewhere in the October gloom and read. I've stolen a few minutes this morning to start The Golden Compass, though, and am already deeply, deeply engaged. Already the movie is working on me - it may be decades or never before I will read this book again and not see Dakota Blue Richards where my slight, wilder Lyra once was. I don't mind so much with Daniel Craig overtaking my fierce, grisly Asriel, but when I get to Mrs. Coulter I may have a fit. As much as the general principle of movie adaptation remains true - that the books still exist, and the movies cannot harm them - these things do play hell on the internal casting agent and art director.

Soon there will be colouring books and Happy Meals and dolls (here's Big Fuckin' Lyra, by the way, from the people who made my Big Fuckin' Hermione - a 12"-tall 11-year-old at 18" scale... she'd look a bit strange standing next to 12" Qui-Gon, wouldn't she?). This secret corner of the literary world is about to get blown open and out, and for many years will be bloody incommodius - but when I am much older than I am now it may still be possible to, like today, sit down somewhere soft and find my way back into that rich, clear landscape of scholars and poison and Dust, with its attendant thrills, jeopardy, and looming adventure.

Posted by tederick at 9:24 AM in books & jedi antics & movies
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Indian food? Superbad? The sky is my oyster.

Posted by tederick at 8:54 PM in miscellaneous crap
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I went to see The Darjeely Whateverthefuck tonight. It sucked. Man did it suck. I do not, do not, DO NOT get the Wes Anderson thing. Not liking Wes Anderson, in my circle of friends, is like not liking Jodie Foster. I mean, everybody likes Jodie Foster. Nobody even has to explain why they like Jodie Foster; it's just assumed. It's not even that I'm the black sheep; I'm the black iguana.

I am also semi colon boy. I wield them like ninja stars.

So today I worked from 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. I worked at home, which made it both more effective work - I got a ton done today - but also way more intense and ultimately exhausting. Plus I've been in a generally foul mood all this week which even twinkle-eyes at the Starbucks can't lift; this mood doesn't seem to have been caused by anything specifically and it isn't even pervasive or long-lasting, I just seem to dip into the hacked-off place whenever I don't have anything better to do. Is this to be my winter personality? Hope not. I tell ya what though: I am fully well fed up with having fur all over my face. Today my cell phone got caught in it. What the fuck! That's a thing that happens?

Going to the Goo tomorrow night for a brief layover. Also looking like I'll be back in Vancouver for at least a few days in November, possibly even getting a free weekend out of the deal. This suits me. I am excited by certain creative opportunities offered by my job right now, and I remain obsessed with free travel and nice hotels. And otherwise, I am formally looking for the next cool thing to start happening so I can quit grumping.

Saw the Juno trailer at the theatre tonight. Cannot wait. I want to live in that movie and never come out.

Posted by tederick at 11:46 PM in j-o-b & movies
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Closer. Far closer:

Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it Please don't drop it

Posted by tederick at 1:03 PM in books & movies
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It seems to me that Lando Calrissian was in a hell of a position. Professional gambler, and not a small one - he lost the Falcon playing cards against Han Solo, a whole frickin' space ship. Have you ever lost a space ship? No. Calrissian's got the desperation in him, he knows that when he gambles he can go too far and lose big, but it's the only thing he knows how to do. He's barely staying ahead of the curve at Bespin, and then the Dark Lord shows up on Cloud City and offers Lando a deal - Lando figures he can run with it, bide his time till the river turns over and make what he can make based on what's on the table. But Vader switches the game on him, the river never comes, and suddenly Lando's caught out dealing from the bottom of the deck by not just a Sith Lord, but by one of the best gamblers Lando ever knew: Hanwise J. Solo. Sure, it's a bad situation that he got himself into by thinking he could play one step ahead of a dirty game, but still, one sympathizes. How could he have known that for a few brief, terrifying hours, is little Tibana gas mine would be the hub around which the entire Galactic Civil War revolved?

It's election day in Ontario; I admit I haven't been as diligent as I might have been in selecting my candidate. I tend to vacillate between the Liberals and the NDP at both the Federal and Provincial levels of government, but I live in a strongly NDP riding right now. While I can support the NDP candidate at the Federal level (hey, it's Jack Layton, the man entrances me), something about the Provincial candidate makes me queasy. So I'm really not sure which way I'll go tonight, though I'll give it more thought today. We have a referendum this time around, too, but I don't think it's a very exciiting one. Still, decisions must be made.

Having mired up halfway through issue 4 of Snapdragon, I am reviewing and revising the earlier issues. This morning I finished issue 2 (again). I've also come up with at least two (maybe three?) new characters that I'd like to drop in there, but there isn't a lot of space. Page count is my nemesis. Advantage of writing comics: the dialogue can be a bit more "on the nose," which suits me; disadvantage: way, way shorter lines, which runs counter to my obvious tendencies towards verbotic overrun. It's a juggling act. And I'm trying not to get too ratholed on this single item that will, quite obviously, never see publication, but it's a logical puzzle to try to solve this thing, and I am engrossed.

Posted by tederick at 8:34 AM in galaxy far & goddamn politics & the process
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And c/o Adam's shutterbugly fingers, here's your first look at the production of VCR: The Ninth Gate, a.k.a. VCR 9.

I started cutting the flick tonight and yeah, it's gonna work out juuuuuuuust fine. Got a spine now and all sorts of dangly bits. More news as the situation develops...

Posted by tederick at 10:19 PM in photoblog & tederick films
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WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Points for...? Points against...? Not sure.

Posted by tederick at 7:13 PM in dr. jones
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"He grabbed me and said, 'YOU DO NOT HUG A COP!!' And I just thought, 'what a sad rule.'" - Seth Rogen

There, now you won't be able to get "Love will tear us apart" out of your head any more than I've been able to. That fucking thing has been playing intermittently in my mind since the seventh of September. Does that seem fair to you? Well, it is awesome. I finally knuckled to the Costanza pressure and bought a whole bunch of Joy Division from the iTunes music store. Did it legal, cuz I'm no asshole. And yet, I self-identify as "pirate." Clearly, something is amiss.

So what happened today: FUCK ALL!! Well no actually plenty happened, I had a fairly solid object lesson in how and why I do not want to go back to the mental space at work that I occupied prior to TIFF, and I think I did a pretty good job of wrestling out of that. But more important is the yesterday factor, wherein we shot the exteriors (and some of the interiors) for VCR 9. I scheduled the shoot for the Thanksgiving weekend because I wanted a bleak, cold, near-apocalyptic look. What did I get? 31 degrees and full sunshine, the hottest October 8 in the history of the world. How's that for being born under a bad star.

But anyways, the shooting was fruitful. We even... well, we went somewhere that we could technically have gotten in trouble for but we got our shots and got the hell out. I now have enough of the skeleton to actually start editing the thing, and I can spend the next few months picking up the other elements. Only one frame of the 9 feels week to me; I might come up with something better, and that "something better" might involve finger puppets, if I can find a way to tie those same puppets into the theme. We'll see.

I was totally going to drop myself on the couch and watch a couple of French flicks tonight, but the gorramned bloody film festival from hell is invading my DVD player yet again. Next apartment: no sharing. Sharing is wrong and causes cancer. There, I bet you didn't know that before you came here today. Tederick.com is all about the learning.

Posted by tederick at 6:52 PM in 1MFVF & j-o-b & tederick films
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Lolcat bible translation project!!!

1. In teh beginnin Invisible Man was invisible, and he maded the skiez and da earths, but he did not eated it.

2. The earths wus witout shapez and wus dark and scary and stuffs, and he rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3. And Invisible Man sayz, i can has light? and teh light wuz.

4. Teh Invisible Man sawed teh light, to sees stufs, and speraratered the light form dark and stufs

5. And Invisible Man sayed light Day and dark no Day. Teh evning and morning was teh first day

Posted by tederick at 8:40 AM in miscellaneous crap
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Hooooooooleeeeeeeeeeee craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapppppp.

Posted by tederick at 7:21 PM in podcastery
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The goblin dances here:

Posted by tederick at 11:15 AM in tederick films
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Things for which I am thankful, 2007 edition:

• New boss, clearer direction at work
• Blu-ray DVDs
• Teen Girl Squad
• Sideshow Collectibles
• Terra, Snapdragon and VCR 9
• my friend's adorable kid
• Indy IV
• the Black Pearl
• my left arm
• health, peace, and well-being.

How to put this... my butt is fabulous right now. I noticed that yesterday. If I were on the outside looking in, I'd want my ass like crazy. I blame the cycling. I feel like a ghost in my own clothes right now; I downsized a few weeks ago and it's looking like I'm going to have to do it again before Christmas. The tapeworm theory advances another step, but being as that it appears to be a Tapeworm With The Power To Bestow Great Ass, I can hardly complain. Bestow, tapeworm, bestow! I'm right here with ya.

T-giving d-ner at Brown Manor was a calm and stately affair, though I got scooped on the leftovers by that rat sister of mine. (No, I'm su